According to incomplete statistics, hepatitis C antibody positive, patients amount to 40,000,000 at present in China and 80% of them will suffer from chronic hepatitis C. Hepatitis C is a kind of liver disease transmitting by way of blood, sexual contact, mother-baby and daily contact et al. After infecting of HCV, like HBV the sufferer is likely to catch chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and liver cancer.
At present, long-acting interferon combined with Ribavirin is mainly used to treat patients with hepatitis C virus whose liver function is normal and the overall sustained virological response rate is 52%. But during the process of treatment using interferon and Ribavirin, the adverse reactions of bone marrow suppression, depression and digestive tract symptom et al. may appear. Moreover, long-acting interferon is expensive and the cost of a course of 48 weeks is about ¥60,000. Consequently, it is a focus in pharmaceutical industry at the present time to develop natural drugs that have better anti-HCV efficacy with lower price and little side effects.